The Long Dark

The Long Dark is a thoughtful, exploration-survival experience that challenges solo players to think for themselves as they explore an expansive frozen wilderness in the aftermath of a geomagnetic disaster. There are no zombies -- only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster.

* Fixed issue with post-FX not rendering correctly on Linux when using Medium or higher display settings.* Fixed issue with movie files not playing correctly on Linux.

General

* Fixed issue with Jeremiah's Flare Cache not spawning correctly. This fixes a blocker in getting the Supply Caches achievement.* Fixed several small typos in various Trust dialogues.* Memory optimizations.* Fixed issue where Survival music could occasionally be heard in a story episode.* Fixed issue where Jeremiah would be inanimate after completing the Bear Hunt mission.* Fixed issue where the Snow Shelter would not unlock properly after completing the relevant Trust unlock.* Fixed issue where Methuselah cinematic might not play in Renewed Hope mission.* Fixed issue where Rifle could end up in a broken state when reloading during a door transition.* Fixed issue in Survival Mode where the female survivor voice sometimes plays when playing as the male survivor.* Fixed issue with a series of multiple exertion sounds being played after a Bear struggle.

### END OF PATCH NOTES ###

We're continuing to fix additional issues as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience.

- The Hinterland Team

The Long Dark

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Anyone else disappointed that you're basically doomed?

I've only played for about 50 hours so far, but near as I can tell, nothing respawns, and a lot of material is non-renewable. Eventually, you'll run out of bullets, and guns will be useless (which given that firearms are a skill, it seems kind of sad tha...

Podcast: The Electronic Wireless Show talks Gamescom, The Long Dark and Plunkbat

9:00am

Toss another podcast episode upon the fire, stranger. The cold is closing in but the Electronic Wireless Show will keep us warm. Pip, Alice and Adam gather round the podfire this week to talk about the lies (Adam tells) at Gamescom, the icy reception to The Long Dark‘s story mode, the cleansing rain of Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, and the deadly climates of No Man’s Sky.

We then turn to you, listeners, to discuss your favourite in-game weather. And somewhere in the middle there’s also a long discussion about karaoke, for some reason. (more…)

STEAM PATCH 6 For The Long Dark -- Updates the game to Version 1.08 (32384)

WARNING: There may be Story spoilers in these notes.

* Memory and performance optimizations.* Fixed issue where Methuselah may not trigger correctly in certain circumstances in Episode Two.* Fixed issue with "Hank's Hatch" side mission in Episode Two.* General fixes to various cinematics.* Fixed issue with players teleporting when exiting the Lone Lake Cabin in Episode Two.* Fixed issue where players could get stuck in Grey Mother's Fuel mission in Episode One.* Fixed issue with text jittering on some screens.* Retuned Food and Fuel requirements of respective Grey Mother missions in Episode One.* Fixed camera crashing during Climb and Harvesting animations when FOV is over 90 degrees.* Fixed a variety of annoying collision bugs throughout.* Fixed issue where the Flashlight's "high intensity" setting was ineffective against Aurora Wolves.* Fixed endlessly feeding Wolf in Milton.* Fixed issue where players could sometimes get stuck in a dialogue sequence.* Fixed issue with overlapping text in the Give Items portion of the Trust interface.

### END OF PATCH NOTES ###

We're continuing to fix additional issues as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience.

- The Hinterland Team

The Long Dark

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The Long Dark -- Patch 5 is now live!

Aug 9

STEAM PATCH 5 For The Long Dark -- Updates the game to Version 1.07 (32337)

Patch 5 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Full changelist below.

WARNING: There may be Story spoilers in these notes.

* Fixed issue with Rope Fall section of Episode One, where players could get stuck due to a scripting bug.* Improved cover flow UI for Episode Selection to make it more obvious that there are two available episodes.* Fixed issue with Aurora probability in Survival Mode. Auroras should now appear more reliably.* Difficulty tuning of Wolves in Episode One. Struggle should be more survivable for new players.* Fixed some camera popping in Episode One cinematics.* Fixed scripting error in "Fix My Rifle?" that could create mission logic issues.* Fixed issue in Bear Hunt mission where the Ear would not spawn under certain circumstances.* Fixed issue with Mackenzie clipping through the chair in some Episode One cinematics.* Fixed issue with missing Milton Knowledge strings.* Fixed issue with not being able to pick up the Bear Hide in Survival School.* Fixed issue where the note with the Code would not appear in "Hank's Hatch" side mission.

### END OF PATCH NOTES ###

We're continuing to fix additional issues as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience.

The Long Dark may have given a new meaning to the Early Access stage. It was initially released as “early” as September 2014 (same age as my Steam account) and until August 2017 it remained in Early Access, thus a really long wait for the dev team to finally implement a storyline along that lovely survival mode. The game I’m writing about is special for a couple of reasons. First, its 2013 successful Kickstarter campaign was a following to the already secured funding from the Canada Media Fund. The public sector joined forces along with public funding, in order to finance one of the best video games focusing on the Canadian wilderness. The second and most important feature, is that Long Dark is a very thorough survival simulation. It leaves next to no details or variables out of the equation. No easy feat considering that Hinterland Studio Inc. is a developer with no previously released projects.

Story

I received a review copy several months ago but delayed my review for The Long Dark on purpose since I always like judging a video game for the merits and potential strength of its narrative as well, not just gameplay diversity and fun factor. As always, I’ll be completely honest and I do have to confess that I expected a subpar story, filled with plot holes and clichés. What I witnessed instead, is an emotional tale featuring metaphors to both life and death. They aren’t even disguised by subtlety and I couldn't fathom just how deep this “rabbit hole” would go.

Before leaving Early Access and playing in that notoriously unforgiving survival “sandbox mode”, I imagined at the very least that it would have to be a story about a stranded person, having to fight nature and overcome/tame it somehow. I knew that a journey would have to feature locations far more diversified than the intial six maps and an ending to this simulated ordeal. I didn’t expect this struggle for survival to feature two main characters, each connected to the other in an emotional way. Players shall get to experience The Long Dark from the perspective of utility pilot Will Mackenzie (at least in the two out of five episodes released so far) and his former wife, Dr. Astrid Greenwood.

Just by having that as a feature instead of an option, speaks volume about the future plans for this game’s storyline. At the time of this writing, I definitely can’t tell you how it will end (nor was I ever inclided to spoil it, anyways) even in broad terms. Three more episodes shall be released in the future and The Long Dark shall reward both its veteran player base and the new wave, by offering all the future story content, absolutely free. Who can argue with that? I will try to summarize at least a few crucial details about the main characters and their motivations.

Will is regarded as a “bush pilot” (person used with flying over/landing on rough terrain and equally difficult weather conditions) and he reluctantly agrees to transport his ex-wife to a remote location in the vast northern wilderness from Canada for a cryptic reason which he doesn’t question a lot. Astrid is carrying a tightly locked briefcase and insists on departing at once, despite the impending snow storm which shall ultimately force Mackenzie to crash land. They are separated and wounded, hungry, thirsty, freezing and in mortal danger from the inexplicably aggressive wildlife. But they must endure and survive to meet once again. The Story Mode is named “Wintermute”. That is a hint by itself.

Graphics

Just like its “Canadian wilderness rival” Kona, Unity Engine is powering The Long Dark as well. Apart from the different visual style separating these two, the gameplay experience went on smoothly. I could run them both, maxed out and at 4K resolution without ever worrying that the frame rate will drop below 60. It goes without saying that both titles feature plenty opportunities for epic screenshots, thanks to their minimal User Interface and a HUD which fades away, when not in use.

Do I still have to emphasize how dark the nights in The Long Dark, really are? It’s right there in the game’s title afterall. I didn’t expect this either but I wasn’t as shocked as going from Vice City’s neon-lit ‘80s streets to the gritty realism in Grand Thef Auto IV and its depressing depiction of night life. No, I was aware that survival in the dark, in the middle of freezing nowhere basically, should force players to seek shelter at once. I am glad that The Long Dark didn’t feature the unmodded skyline from Skyrim. Epic, yet far from reality and the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) musn’t distract you from the approaching pack of starving wolves since you’re just a regular Joe, not Dragonborn.

Overall, the visuals stood out in a nice way, the HUD allowed me to take as many screenshots as I pleased (& on my terms) while the textures had some minor flaws from time to time. Nothing game breaking and at least from afar, it wasn’t much of an issue. Eye candy doesn’t mean everything and The Long Dark is anything but plain. Looks or otherwise. The visual style is a mix between comic book and cel shading, but without visible outlines.

Audio

If the soundtrack will certainly satisfy your ears, wait until I tell you about the voice acting. It’s a Mass Effect reunion, without you know, the actual Mass Effect gameplay and feel. Ladies and gentlemen, Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer! Jane and John Shepard, if you never bothered changing their in-game names. These two voice actors made the ME trilogy a lot better and they have now used their talent in The Long Dark with the same kind of convincing enthusiasm. Sure, there isn’t nearly as much dialogue in the game but even monologues require skill. Otherwise you get a “stellar” performance such as Destiny’s “Dinklebot”. I prefer silence than phoning in your lines for a quick paycheck.

I discovered macros when trying to figure out why the struggle mechanic never worked for me. It turned out that the problem was with my frame rate, but it made me curious.
So what do you guys think about using marcos for wolf struggles?

I've been playing this game for a couple years now through its development in sandbox mode and have really enjoyed it. Yes, some of the mechanics are a bit crude and yes, it can be quite tedious at times - but I like the simplicity. I also like that it doesn't fetishize guns like a lot of other survival games. I'm also from, and live on, the island where the game is developed (and takes place... kind of...), and I just really wanted it to turn into something great. It has a fantastic foundation.

Throughout the past couple years, I've always been impressed that it has had constant updates that have made huge improvements to gameplay, ui, and content. However, within the past year I guess resources have been shifted to story mode and some of the frustrating issues of the game have just... remained. In sandbox mode, as you progress from surviving a couple of days to multiple weeks, these issues really start to stand out.

The meat issue. A deer will yeild 10kg (22lbs) of meat. Okay - that's reasonable. But buddy will gobble that away in just two days. I mean, come on. Thats like 15,000 calories - it should last at least a week. If you could store things outside in the cold...

You can't store food in the cold (maybe they've fixed this now?). That's a pretty fundamental aspect of wilderness survival, especially long-term. There should be a robust system for caching food - hangs, boxes, etc. If you can't stockpile, then what's even the point?

Wolves. I get it - geomagnetic blah, blah, blah. They're all hopped up on goofballs and want to kill everything. But if they're going to be such a central part of the game, then maybe don't make them so one-dimensional. Vary their behaviour or something... That's one of the most terrifying and dangerous things about animals in the wild - they're unpredictable. These things are just robots. They get boring really quick, and the keyboard-mashing defence mechanic is super lame.

First-Aid. Bad mechanic. Unintuitive. It was much more user-friendly before.

I could really get into it and nitpick, but those are the most frustrating issues with the survival aspect. "Oh, that's not so bad!" you say? Well it isn't. I think those things could be fixed. And may even be fixed in the future. And even despite these issues, I really enjoy sandbox mode. I like that I can sink a bunch of hours into a character, become really invested in them over the course of weeks, only to make some stupid, miniscule mistake and unceremoniously die. That feels super real to me. So why the thumbs down? Two words:

STORY MODE.

Holy mother of god the story mode of this game is ♥♥♥♥ing horrible. This is the videogame equivalent of The Room. The most amateur writing I have ever experienced. At least with The Room it's funny. This is not. It's cringey. I've never rolled my eyes so much. I want to give contructive feedback, but god ♥♥♥♥in DAMN. Seriously, get an editor. Please. Get. An. Editor.

I think maybe an alien wrote this - something that doesn't understand human logic and emotion, because the dialogue totally illogical, melodramatic, lacking motivation... Characters feel completely undeveloped and say things that don't make any sense in the context of the conversation. Everytime a dialogue sequence occurs I have to take my headphones off and go do something else until it's over. Every character is some goofy trope, which totally goes against the atmosphere of the rest of the game. Why is Gimli the dwarf in this♥♥♥♥♥♥? Why does the old woman have a cloth over her eyes?? Have you ever met a blind person?? Have you ever met a person??

The whole 'doing missions for people in order to progress' mechanic. After the first person you encounter, (the old crone - ooo someone read Joseph Campbell...), the whole bit of running errands for people gets super stale. The part about the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ old bear who APPEARS IN FRONT OF THE DOOR as soon as the mission starts and then, since Gimli gives you all this bad advice on how to kill it, you have to just get mauled a million ♥♥♥♥ing times until you can unload enough rounds into it... And that's the way you're supposed to do it. The whole thing is just so poorly and hastily hashed together - it really feels like a pre-release version (which is what I thought it was when I first started into it - I actually thought it was placeholder dialogue and animations).

Additionally, there are absolutely no segues into story sequences. When Gimli gets attacked by the bear, it's just suddenly happening. I thought the game was playing the wrong sequence or something since there was no transition from gameplay into cutscene. Likewise when you're in the dam and the convict(?) appears. I walked into a room and suddenly I was hurt. But there was no cue. No audio, no animation... No context to tell you what was going on. Which might actually work to the story's advantage if the game was more polished. And then you're in another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dialogue scene. (Seriously - to the writer of this stuff: you REALLY needed to workshop this script before it got locked down).

One last thing - to the developers. Ya'll, if you're going to make something regional, you've got to respect the region. You've taken a lot of inspiration from the Island for sure, but you fail to express it in any sort of nuanced way. In sandbox, it felt pretty good - rooted enough to be interesting, but abstracted enough not to feel forced. Now that I've experienced story mode though... damn... I'm not even going to get into that...

In conclusion: The sandbox mode is great. It's meditative. You'll play for hours planning out your next moves, stashing gear, exploring, contemplating, wandering from town to town looting. And then suddenly you'll make a mistake, get stuck in a storm, attacked by a wolf, or whatever and you'll have to think fast or die. I love that. So play the sandbox and the challenges and enjoy them. But do not go near the story mode. It will ruin the entire experience.

If you want this game, you want it for the sandbox. The story mode is just an odd... decision that to me feels like Hinterlands hired a completely outside team to develop. Its a linear story shoved into a distinctively non-linear game. From what I understand any further developments on the game will be focused on the story. Maybe it'll get better? But when you botch the intial roll out, it doesn't provide much faith.

As to the sandbox or challenges, you will probably enjoy it for a few runs. But with each attempt, you might notice the glaring issues that really have not changed since the game first went EA. The two things that stop me playing is the time you spend watching a little spinning wheel and then surprise wolves.

Time is very important resource in TLD, you will need to carefully manage it to last more than a week. Almost every action your character makes will take a chunk of time, leaving you to stare at an hourglass. The reliance on this is probably the most significant issue I have with the game and what spurred this review. Most tasks use time dilation to lesson the amount of time you are out of the game but where it feels jarring though is when you start searching through buildings.

Some loot will be strewn about on tables or tucked away in a corner. But most of it will be in a drawer that you click on and wait to search. You have a rather interesting system of random placement that requires actually looking under a table or lighting a lamp for those hard to reach spots. Then you have a few dozen containers or cabinets that you click and wait on. I suppose its a tradeoff between types of effort, a tedious system of having to check under every sofa for a candybar against repetitive clicking and waiting.

In summary, they missed so many opportunities to add depth to core gameplay mechanics through smaller challenges that left me feeling quickly bored. Rather than learning some sort of minigame in harvesting a deer or sewing patches on my jacket, you watch that spinning wheel to level up the skill.

The wolves (and I guess to a smaller extent the bears) are the most direct threat to your playthrough. You will be attacked by them at some point, there's really no getting around it. Which means you'll be mashing your LMB in the hopes of not taking too much damage. This mechanic is terrible and has hardly changed since it entered EA. Rather than a more nuanced quicktime event where you guide your stabs or something with a bit of skill, you suddenly perform an action that I don't seem how anyone could enjoy.

When you couple this combat with the wonky AI design, bugs, and spontaneous spawning of wolves, it can rapidly wear on your patience. My last playthrough on stalker difficulty ended when I turned a corner and a pack of wolves spawned behind me. One was glitched into a tree, another went right into attack mode and the other waited patiently for its turn to kill me. Mind you they spawned in a previously empty field that wolves hadn't spawned in before. At higher difficulties, there are implausibly large packs of wolves appearing at random and break the game's immersion.

As I opened with, if you want get this game, wait for a sale. There are some significant issues that I don't see being resolved that I think may wear on your experience.

The coloured lights flaring across the night sky in the frozen Canadian wilderness were one of the most anticipated elements of Hinterland’s survival game, The Long Dark [official site]. Since the Kickstarter we’ve known they would do more than brighten the night, playing a key part in the game’s episodic story mode, but now they’re in the game I find myself braving the uptick in danger they bring or setting aside a necessary survival task to stand outside and stare up at the skies in delight. So how did the design of the aurora develop. how did the team balance beauty and hostility and DID YOU KNOW that the Aurora Borealis makes a noise in real life that Hinterland incorporated into the game?? Here’s creative director Raphael van Lierop to explain more in our latest State of the Art feature! (more…)

Multiplayer / Co-op / PvP in The Long Dark -- All threads will be merged here

This thread is for discussion related to multiplayer in The Long Dark. It has been left unlocked to give players a place to share and discuss ideas, as well as see Hinterland's comments about the topic. Future threads related to multiplayer/co-op/pvp will...

I just want to say that bear f^$%ing p1ssed me the $&^$ off, enough to stop playing. I worked hard, up that point, to remain safe and in pristine condition. Always ready with my flares for wolves, even killed that other bear by the forest talkers lounge w...